jive turkey...

Posted: November 20th, 2006

hello.
soon we'll be celebrating one of my favorite holidays of the year, thanksgiving. for me, any time we can all agree to take a step back, take a deep breath & look at the big picture & truly appreciate it, is cause for celebration (& with all good celebrations, good food).

as a kid, I loved the story of the pilgrims & the mayflower. in 4th grade, in mrs. wolczanski's class, I got to be william bradford in our class play. I remember messing up a line I had regarding some order I was giving miles standish to put on a display for the natives (the rest of 4th grade is a blur).

I thought it might be interesting to dig up some facts on thanksgiving:

1. only 1/3 of the original colonists that came over on the mayflower were actually separatists. the rest were hired by a london stock company to protect their vessels & interest in the colony.

2. by the time of their 1st harvest, 46 of the original 102 had died. it is accepted that the remaining group survived largely due to the credit of the native americans.

3. an 'english harvest' feast was held to commemorate the occasion.

4. it is likely that they had wild duck or geese ('turkey' was a generic term for several varieties of wild fowl), corn bread, fish, berries, watercress, lobster, clams, venison, dried fruit & plums.

(* note - no turkey, cranberries, sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie)

more to come...